Wednesday, September 15, 2010

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For my birthday I ordered a Really Right Stuff BH-55 Ball Head (you can order yours at www.reallyrightstuff.com) . I have had the ball head for a little over a month now. I can safley say that it is the best ball head that I have ever used.

Fit and Finish:

The fit and finish of the BH-55 is absolutely stunning. The BH-55 is made with very high quality parts. The BH-55 has a nice heft to it when you hold it in you hand. Despite being mass manufactured the BH-55 is artfully crafted. All of the knobs have a nice drag to them and an excellent feel. The quick release is well made and has a smooth and quick operation.

Use:

The BH-55 ball head shines above all others in usage. It makes using a tripod a dream. Before using the BH-55 I did not like using tripods. The main reason for my dislike of tripods was that the ball heads that I have used in the past sagged and were hard to operate. The BH-55 has absolutely no sag even with my heaviest combo of a Canon 1DMKIII and Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS. The thing that makes the BH-55 shine is that it allows you to have a set tension on the ball that allows for a nice drag. You can move the camera around with the drag set properly and then release the camera and it will not sag or droop. It also is an extremely smooth ball because of the size.

Recommendation:

I would recommend this ball head to anyone that can afford the price. The price is hefty, but this ball head is worth every penny. I will primarily be using this ball head in the studio. If you need a travel ball head I would look to one of the other Really Right Stuff designs that is smaller and lighter.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

This morning on twitter I found a link to the above video. It is a great inspiring video about leadership. The tweet was from Dave Ramsey who I think embodies the golden circle concept brought up in the video.

My workflow has always been inefficient. From my earliest days in school till just recently I have been an unorganized mess. While my quality of work has always been high, the amount of time and effort involved in obtaining that quality was on the long and difficult side. From elementary school though my junior year in college I was grossly inefficient at getting things done. I would always finish my projects on time, but things were never well organized. Things were never well organized because I had never been taught how to be organized. My senior year in college I read a blog post about being more efficient with my time. I started blocking out 4 hour chunks of time to work on projects and doing them one at a time and taking no breaks. This method worked well for me, but I still had other things on my mind that made me ineffective with my time.

Since graduating college, getting married and starting my own business my organizational skills really started showing up as being quite poor. I was terrible at managing my time. I had a very hard time making time for my business, my family, my friends and also wanting to get more involved with other organizations. I figured it was time to try to get things prioritized. There had to be a better way to do things then they way I had been doing them.

These two links got me started with GTD. Later I decided to buy the book.

David Allen has a simple concept. Get things out of your head and on paper. David Allen says that if you can get all of the ideas swirling around in your head on paper that you can be more productive. David advocates writing all the ideas down and putting them in a filing system. David has a great system that I have implemented in my life. I have become more productive with his system. Writing everything down and organizing it into distinct areas and projects has helped me to get more done and to remember more stuff that I need to do. I recommend GTD for those that are looking to help out their workflow in any industry. The concepts that David presents can be implemented in any knowledge or creative job. This is a great read for photographers. You can apply the workflow discussed in the book to your creative process. You can apply the concepts to client meetings, post processing, and your daily life.

Monday, September 13, 2010

A couple of months agoMary Sobon of Management Solutions Group recommended for me to read Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod. Mary told me that it is a book that all freelancers should read.

Hugh MacLeod is an amazing cartoonist and author. Hugh started out his professional career as a freelance copy writer in NYC with a 10 day gig at a major Manhattan firm which later turned into a full time gig. In his first couple of weeks in NYC he started doodling on the backs of business cards. Hugh found it to be a great medium for his art because it was pocketable and could be taken anywhere at a size of 2.5x3in.

MacLeod eventually took his cartoons and and started a blog with them. With each cartoon was a pithy saying, insights, and a healthy dose of humor. The blog is still active although MacLeod no longer post new cartoons on the blog. His blog is www.gapingvoid.com. You can still get new cartoons from MacLeod if you sign up for his e-mail list.

I call MacLeod an author because I view him as an amazingly talented writer. He takes writing to an art form. With an incredibly few number of words he paints amazing clear and vivid pictures of reality that are augmented with his cartoons.

Ignore Everybody is a collection of 40 cartoons and written sections to go with them. The book started out as a series on his blog called "How to be Creative" the book is a tamed down version of his original blog series. The book still might be a bit racy for corporate stiffs or small children. Nevertheless, it is one of my favorite books on marketing/creativity/leadership.

I had a few big take-aways from the book. The first big take away is ignore everybody, the second sex and money, and third the world is tougher than most young people think. When MacLeod says ignore everybody he is not saying to just write everyone off. He is saying that when you have that bright “ah-ha” moment that you are going to get some terrible advice from those around you. You have to treat the idea as your baby. You can't sell out the idea you have and keep true to you idea. He also points out that great ideas change the dynamics of relationships. The second take-away is sex and money. MacLeod says that everyone does what they do for two reasons: either sex or money. You have to put bread on the table and that is the stuff you do for money, but you also have to have your creative side that you do not for money but because it is your passion or sex to you. Take-away three is that the creative world is a lot harder than we think when we are young and ideallic. MacLeod is not saying to you to not go out and do it, he is providing inspiration.

This is a photography focused blog. I think that every photographer should read this book. It gives amazing insights to the creative professional. In the world of commercial art we sometimes forget the fact that we are indeed artist. We are artist with our own vision. The art director is not the end all and be all of the creative endeavor on set. As creatives we have to have our own vision and ultimately that is why we get hired. This is a book that can make you think about your marketing, photography, creativity, and leadership in new and different ways.

I will fully recommend this book to anyone that wants to read it. So go check it out!

Nick Bumgardner

About Me

He bought his first camera at the age of 4. Since then, he has owned film cameras, digital SLRs and medium and large format cameras. Nick is currently freelancing as a commercial and editorial photographer in the Nashville, Tn.